Why are we taught opposing beliefs re: freedom vs work?

[Scepcop]

I've always felt that there was something very wrong with this that didn't make sense. We seem to be taught these two irreconcilable views:

1. Humans are born with inalienable rights to be free. Freedom is our nature and what makes us the most happy. Our founding fathers fought and died for their freedom and yours. It is the highest value and worth risking your life for. As Paul Revere said in this famous quote, "Give me liberty or give me death".

2. In order to make a living in this world, you have to get a steady job which commits you long term to a life of slavery under a corporation where your daily routine and schedule is under the control of others, usually an oppressive system, where there is only conformity and no freethinking, where you live like a caged animal who kisses butt for peanuts. If you don't submit yourself to this "cage", you are maladaptive and your life has no meaning or purpose.

Now I don't know about you, but something never clicked or felt right about these two views that we are taught. Anyone else notice this too?

It's like we are just supposed to accept this huge contradiction and inconsistency in our values and beliefs.

[NinjaPuppy]

I was told many years ago that everyone gets that 'worker bee' mentality drilled into their heads at a very early age. The reason everyone is supposed to work so hard in school is to get a good job. The cycle starts at age 5. If you're smart, you'll get a good job.

Now they're on the track to 'success'! Work the next 12 years of your life so you can work good and hard the rest of your life.

What a frickin' crock of smelly excrement that is.

[Nostradamus]

But it is possible for people to drop out and do their own thing. It is fairly easy here in the US where I dropped out for years at a time to be a climbing bum. I traveled around the US for years seeing the great outdoors. Came back to the grind for a while and went back to fun for a few more years.

[NinjaPuppy]

[The Warrigal]

FWIW. I dropped out at 14 and started work.

Obviously I have never held a "prestige" job, but even as a kid I earned good money by seeking out unskilled and semi-skilled jobs that are highly waged because most people don't want to do them which leaves employers in the position of practically having to bribe workers to do them.

For sure those sorts of jobs are very hard, very mucky, very hazardous, or any combination of those three things and the hours are often long, but they are well worth doing as the financial reward usually grants you more rather than less freedom of choice as to where you work and how many months of the year in which you choose to work.

I have seen a lot of Australia in working life and have also worked in four other nations.

My grandfather used to say that we are all free to work or starve, which is pretty much a classic example of the "worker bee" mindset which as Ninja observed, is drummed into most of us from the cradle to the grave.

Well that, and the work ethic which teaches us that there is something moral about working for the sake of working.

Or so it seems to me!

[smartestguyintheroom]

Thats a good point you bring up. Lets look at the way our current system is run. From the age of 5 you start going to school. In school you are taught to work for someone else. In fact there isn't one class that teaches you how to become an entrepreneur, you are then taught to go to college and get a good career so you can work for someone for the rest of your life. But when you are at the age of 65 you get to retire. Doesn't really seem right when you think about it does it. Think back to the days when it took 1 person an entire lifetime to do the same work that a machine can do in one day. Does this mean that the person wasted there life away providing labor for something that could have been more thought out and done proficiently by machines, Well yes it does. Ive never had a job, yes you heard it right. From the ripe age of 15 until now I have never had a single job. Ive never worked for anyone my entire life. Yet I make 100x more money than the average person does an hour. I dropped out of high school in 10th grade and never went to college. Instead I moved to Florida and learned to make money by selling a simple product I demonstrate at flea markets and festivals. Than at the age of 17 I said to myself, wait a minute I'm still working for someone (myself). Im still trading my time for money. This wasn't what I wanted out of life. Being self employed is exactly what it sounds like employing your self. When ever what you do to make money depends directly on you being the one there to make that money this is called linear income. So guess what. I got books like Rich dad poor dad and think and grow rich, the four hour work week by timothy ferris. What I learned from those books changed the rest of my life. I found out that there are four different types of people in this world and they fit into two categories. On one side you have employees and those who are self employed. These people trade there time directly for money. They can only make as much money as time allows them too. Its impossible to really become wealthy this way because your always trading your own time for money. Than theres the other side. On this side you have Business Owners and Investors. This is the side you want to be on. This is know as passive income. Your time has nothing to do with how much money you make on this side. You can make as much money as you want and the possibilities are limitless. This is the side that any person that has ever created great wealth is on. Anyway I ended up hiring a bunch of people and training them how to do the same thing I did and made great money doing this. I didn't have to work and hired a manager to keep everything in order. But than one day I realized wait a minute although I am a business owner I'm still doing some work. I know it's not much work but it's still some work. So I started looking into automated income. This is the highest method of making money and should be what everyone aims for eventually. I ended up creating a website that hires sales people automatically through a form and application process, than automatically interviews them through a voice response phone line. I simply send them the materials they need to make money with and supply them with the products they need to make this money. When they've sold there products they simply go on my website enter the orders. And get paid automatically through a software program developed by college kids for $10 an hour. So everything from hiring to fulfillment to actually paying my self contractors is all done automatically. This has created more wealth than I ever could have dreamed of by hiring others and supervising them. The point Im trying to get at is that through dedication and a firm believe that we should have free will Ive evolved into the highest form of business intelligence that is possible. I look around me and see people doing what I learned not to do at the age of 15 and wonder wow how could everyone be that blind. I wasn't even a great student in school and think of myself as very lazy but I was smart enough to notice whats going on around me. People really need to wake up and start digging for the truth. It might interest you to know that the entire school system was bought in the early 1900's by the oil tycoon john rockefellar. This is when people started being taught to work for others instead of work for themselves. Why you ask? Why do you think, competition and control. Way back than they knew that if people were taught to run there own business's they would eventually take over the entire oil industry and others. No one would work for measly wages if they knew they could make so much more doing far less work. So what did they do. They started whats known as our current education system to teach others to work for someone. Only the rich are sent to certain private schools that teach there kids to the truth about money and economics, while the rest of the population continues to learn basically nothing. Henry Ford was once called ignorant because he didn't know simple things they teach in school like what the 8th president of the U.S was. You know what he said " why would I want to clog my brain with useless knowlege when I have 50 people around me at all times that can answer these questions for me. Wow, thats an amazing thing when you think about it. Today we all have those same 50 people around us that can answer any question for us in seconds. Its called the internet. School simply clogs your mind with useless information that you will never need to use, and if you ever did need this knowlege you would not have to remember it, you simply look it up. I'm glad I read these books when I was young and learned at a very young age not to learn useless stuff but to learn things that are really gonna help you in the real world. I hope this clears up that question for you a little bit.

[Arouet]

Welcome to the forum. However a huge block of text like that is really hard to read. Can you go back and put in some paragraphs?

[caniswalensis]

Boo friggin' hoo, is what I say to this.

We are creatures that require certain things to live. You have to get them somehow. If you are not happy with how you are getting them, go find another way. That is your freedom.

I have never worked in a place as described in the OP, and I never would. I work for a corporation and it is a place where I am free to speak my mind and creativity and thinking outside the box is encouraged and rewarded. Sure, not all corporations are like that; just the ones that want to stay in business.

My point is, we have no inalienable right to a life of leisure or to have anything given to us. If you intend on living in this world, you need to decide what you need to be happy, and what you are going to do to get it. I have never felt "programmed" and I think the notion that our society has somehow been constructed to do so is flat-out wrong. Our society has grown naturally around our realistic needs as living creatures. It is simply a fact that not everyone is cut out to be self sufficient or run a business or invent something or excell at sports or make amazing art. Most people are content to eat, drink, sleep, and copulate. That is what they are capable of and they are for the most part fulfilled by it. If they were capable of more and really wanted more, they would be doing more.

It's not programming, it is simple reality that dictates much of our path in life. Are any of the people reading this unhappy? If so, then go do something about it instead of making excuses on an internet forum. Fix your life. No one has programmed you, that is just something you say to yourself so that you can fell better about doing nothing.

Harsh, but true.

Regards, Canis

[Craig Browning]

[Craig Browning]

To Continue. . .

POINT ONE: Life has always been “dog eat dog”; whether you go out and get a job the way “the system” conditions us to do or you’re living in some remote village of hunter-gatherers, YOU MUST WORK IN ORDER TO SURVIVE so take a deep breath and accept the fact.

POINT TWO: The better educated you are can aid you in the type of work you will do in life and thus, the sense of status you will ultimately come to know within your culture. However. . .

POINT THREE: Bloodline can trump education or to be a bit more concise, “Intellect” – who your family is and its position within the social-economic-political food-chain will do more to define your role in the world than not. While there are always exceptions to this rule, they are few and far between. Which brings us to the primary point of exception. . .

POINT FOUR: . . . the Who You Know & Who You Blow Factor which is where the whole ethics & morality angle comes into play. While those fitting into the bloodline “Ivy League”/”Blue Blood” sector can and will keep the bulk of the populace in check they will likewise allow certain “chosen ones” up into the higher ranks… all too frequently this is the result of sexual favors, be it via the route of marriage or not (many a whore have been well kept and given the reins of power, no?) But prostitutions, subtle or otherwise, is not the only means by which one can become an “accepted” or tolerated aspect in this upper-crust atmosphere; those that show finesse when it comes to “proper” socializing and a knack at being able to work their way through the every-changing labyrinth of said world, do become engendered, even trusted. While they will see a significant shift in their station it is typically their off-spring that gain the greater course of advantage . . . this is however a cyclic factor that can damn an entire family line nearly as quickly as it can become “blessed” in the mind of the pseudo-elite.

LIFE’S MEANING & PURPOSE . . . is something that is again, up to the individual; YOU do not give my life meaning nor can you define its purpose, that is entirely up to me. Similarly, I cannot place a mantle upon you without robbing you of your own freedom of will and/or destiny, as some might see it. Factors of prophecy and fate however still allow one this very sense of freedom but, as the adage goes, all roads will lead you to where you are meant to be, when you are supposed to be there, if and when karma is involved and destiny proves a valid things . . . while I can appreciate the idea I have to say that the jury is still out when it comes to concrete validation of such a thing, though happenstance throughout history suggests otherwise.

Louise Hay taught that “There are no victims in life, only volunteers” and there is a distinct truth to this; those that do not wish to comply with “the system” and in later life moan and complain about how “unfair” things are, volunteered to be in the position they are in and complaining about – they created their reality and just as they made that “negative” come about they can consciously choose to do what needs to be done in order to climb up out of the rut and onto firmer soil. Unfortunately for such whiners and complainers, one must first learn how to be grateful for the little things in life and humble themselves a bit before they are even remotely able to realize how much better their life is than they are presently perceiving things; again, it is ego that is creating the barrier which seemingly stifles their ability to keep up with the Jones’

My father has a 6th grade education, this is the official story even though he got a GED while in the Army and with that, training in electrical engineering. In the years since he managed to get a Captain’s license for ocean going vessels, a commercial pilot’s license and several other points of merit few well educated people would ever attempt to pursue. He likewise managed to fix and/or prevent various debacles certain college educated children of privilege created, simply because they relied on what books told them would work vs. what life actually has to offer.

My point is, even with all the odds stacked against him, this dumb hillbilly from Oceana, West Virginia managed to create a very decent, even exceptional life for himself. Granted, he was a bastard (and still is) but that very tenacity is what drove him; it is this same kind of energy that compels the many we see pulling themselves up and out of the trenches in society using the enemies energy against them. . .

. . . the Native Americans exploiting white America’s greed and other vices by way of a growing Casino industry.

. . . the Hispanic Invasion being the result of American lethargy . . . the very same lethargic element that, when coupled with an arrogant disdain for persons of “tan” or darker persuasion, lead to enslavement, suppression, etc. and yet, karma is now kicking their ass. . . this land once stolen by the French, Irish, Scottish, German and English now being retaken; not by force as much as exploitation of our vices. All because we’ve stopped playing by “the rules”

. . . the very rules our foreparents established on certain documents about 230ish years ago.

It’s something to think about, isn’t it?

[hdblue]

Dear friends

I like Why are we taught opposing beliefs re: freedom vs work? very much.

Very useful for me.

Rgs

[Craig Browning]

[craig weiler]

smartestguyintheroom just wrote the Paragraph of Death, virtually guaranteeing that every idea he was putting forward would be lost in hard to read text. Writing is a very important communication skill that he appears to be lacking, leading me to wonder about the veracity of his claim.

I do not believe that he is telling the truth.

[hdblue]